Facilitators and Barriers to the Implementation of a Digital Pain Assessment Tool in Pediatric Oncology Practice: A Qualitative Evaluation of a Quality Improvement Project

Abstract

Background: Most children and adolescents with cancer experience acute pain, and many experience longer-lasting chronic pain, negatively impacting health-related quality of life and resulting in long-term morbidity. Digital apps can aid in enhancing pain assessment and management by offering children and adolescents with cancer an accessible tool to describe their pain as a multifaceted biopsychosocial construct. Pain Squad is a useable, acceptable, and psychometrically sound multidimensional cancer pain assessment app for children and adolescents with cancer. This project aimed to evaluate the capacity to implement Pain Squad into routine pediatric oncology practice. Method: Nurse champions were asked to prescribe the Pain Squad app to patients over a 6-month implementation period. After the implementation period, we conducted audiorecorded, semistructured interviews with nurse champions to investigate the facilitators and barriers related to nurses’ experiences with implementing Pain Squad. Results: The facilitators and barriers to Pain Squad implementation were organized into four overarching Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR)-related themes: (a) characteristics of the Pain Squad app; (b) clinic setting and its context; (c) nurse implementation champions; and (d) the process of implementing Pain Squad into clinical practice. Conclusions: Interviewed nurses believed Pain Squad had the potential to improve child cancer pain care, but barriers to everyday use were evident, described in relation to the internal setting, especially the lack of compatibility between app prescription and current nurse workflows. The use of CFIR to map identified implementation facilitators and barriers can formally support the recognition of factors that may boost the chances of successful uptake.